The Well in the Wilderness: Hagar's Hope

Hagar's is such a painful story with no innocent parties. Certainly, Abram is not without blame. We have no record of him consulting the Lord after listening to Sarai's proposal that he take her handmaid, Hagar, to be his wife in order to produce their long-awaited heir. And yet, even though we cringe at the very idea of Abram thus jeopardizing the sanctity of his marriage to Sarai, we forget not only that her "solution" was neither illegal nor immoral in her culture, but also that Sarai and Abram themselves were the product of a blended home, having the same father but different mothers. We simply do not understand the culture of their times.

We also forget that Sarai herself had not once been mentioned as the mother to Abram's promised heir. We expect her to know what we know 4,000 years later--not only that she will be the first barren woman in Genesis to bear a child but that she will bear that child long after her own barrenness renders her womb as good as dead (Romans 4:19). We also fail to value the depth of yearning she must have felt to fulfill womanhood's most sacred role, and we miss almost entirely the exquisite pain of Sarai's decision to set herself aside and to place before her husband a handmaid who later attempts to become her rival.

Hagar's despising of her mistress is no small thing. If Sarai's wrongdoing was essentially selfless at heart, given her own misguided sense of responsibility to make Abram's promises come true, Hagar's wrongdoing is selfish at heart and reveals, not the pressure of Sarai's ambiguous circumstances, but the pride of her own character. This pride would have not only robbed Sarai of her marriage but could also have cost Hagar her own life and the life of her unborn child when she fled to the desert to escape Sarai's revenge. Even if Hagar had rebelled at the thought of surrendering her child to her mistress, she had no cause for despising Sarai's deepest pain. In her pride, Hagar had credited herself with the ability to conceive, instead of realizing that every child comes from the Lord.

As we track the Lord's interaction with Hagar in the wilderness, we notice many things. The first is the astonishing fact that the Angel of the Lord arrests her in her suicide mission. We might have thought--in the interests of the "greater good"--that the Lord could just as soon have let this baby die, knowing the centuries of pain that would come from this one little life. But the Lord never weighs morality by the false balance of utilitarianism. The Angel of the Lord knows that Hagar stands not even one chance in ten of reaching her destination alive. He sees the senseless pride that drives her onward in this serpent-infested wilderness, where the sun alone will slay her of dehydration in a short time. And He knows that, as a woman alone--a woman carrying an unborn child--Hagar has subjected herself to far more villainous treatment than a severe tongue-lashing from her mistress. And God in His mercy allows Hagar's survival instinct to subdue her death wish as she stops to rest at a natural spring on the way to Shur, en route to her home country, Egypt.

We can picture with what abandon Hagar embraces this fresh, cool water, falling headlong perhaps, splashing her face, her neck, her arms, to rinse away the grimy sweat of travel. Suddenly, out of nowhere, she hears a man's voice calling her name. Taken completely off guard, this despairing yet defiant woman sits bolt upright in fear and alertness, a rush of adrenaline reinvigorating her veins. Who is this, this Majestic Being enrobed in light? An Angel!? Talking to her, of all people? We can imagine the times Hagar might have secretly sneered at Abram's and Sarai's prayers, perhaps disbelieving there even was a God. Beads of sweat dribble down Hagar's face.

Will the Lord take sides? The narrative is fascinating in its stark directness. "Hagar, Sarai's maid, where have you come from, and where are you going?" (Genesis 16:8). Hagar cannot help wincing that the Lord identifies her not only by name but also by social status as "Sarai's maid" before asking her to voice her origin and destination. Down goes Hagar's superiority complex; the Lord has sided with Sarai. Hagar answers the first question, "Where have you come from?" but not the second, "And where are you going?" As if one blow to her pride calls for another, the Lord answers for her, instructing, "Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hand" (Genesis 16:9). Again, the Lord has sided with Sarai.

Or has He? The Lord's voice continues, "I will multiply your descendants exceedingly, so that they shall not be counted for multitude" (Genesis 16:10). Hagar drinks this in, bewildered. "Your descendants?" What's this? Her mind whirls to absorb the word "your." But this baby isn't even mine, exactly! And it has no future if it is mine! "Your descendants"? Hagar finds this promise unfathomable. So, my baby will live? Not to become Sarai's baby, but to remain my very own baby? Then why do I have to return to Sarai? We can see Hagar stiffen in resistance.

But the truth begins to form in her mind, even as the Angel eyes her piteously. A look of awe erases her frown. This baby is God's! It must be! How else does He know its destiny? Hagar loses herself in the paradox that this baby is her very own baby but not really her own at all. She can almost feel its tiny heartbeat, its little feet with a footprint all their own. From this one life that wasn't even supposed to happen will come millions more! And a sense of remorse floods Hagar's spirit as she admits she actually half-intended to let this life be snuffed out. She would have killed a kingdom. How graciously the Lord inspires and increases Hagar. It appears that God is on Hagar's side, after all.

But there is more. The Lord not only includes Hagar's lineage in His mercy, He even identifies her child by gender and by name, as if He has known about him from the beginning of time--for, indeed, He has: "Behold, you are with child, and you shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael--because the LORD has heard your affliction" (Genesis 16:11). Tears begin to trickle down Hagar's face. Faster and faster they drip off her chin, until she can no longer hold back wrenching sobs. Ashamed of her true feelings, she feels her hatred being washed away in wave after wave of divine love. So this is Abram's God! Who but the Lord could rebrand her affliction by giving her son such a name--a name as deep with promise as the spring by which the Angel of the Lord found her in the first place!

But the Lord continues: "And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren" (Genesis 16:12). Wait, this is not such good news, after all, is it? My child's future will be dark and troubled--with no relief in sight! And in Hagar the angst of every mother dreading the future of her child finds an answer. Not only does the fate of a million more hang upon the future of this one child, this child's perceived difficult future does not determine its worth or its right to exist. How clearly the Lord speaks of Hagar's unborn child! To spare that child its struggle is not pity but pride--pride that "I" know better than God.

We notice in this difficult prophecy for Ishmael that God's promise for Abram will even yet come to pass. Abram will have more sons, and apparently from Sarai, after all. And this fact underscores what Hagar has already been led to realize--that she must find her new identity as her own son's mother within her old identity as Sarai's mistress--even when God finally gives her mistress her very own child. God doesn't take sides, after all. Just as He has a plan for every child, He has a will for every life. Hagar must work out for herself how she will weave together her conflicting identities--identities that exist seemingly because of Sarai. And she must begin by unraveling her own self-contradictions: she risked destroying the very child over which she felt superior to her mistress by fleeing to prove her superiority over her mistress.

Hagar must also come to see her submission to Sarai as the prerequisite for Ishmael's submission to his father. The Lord's blessing for either Hagar or Ishmael cannot be found apart from this godly heritage, Abram's flaws and mistakes notwithstanding. As surely as Abram fathered Hagar's son, as surely has he been appointed as his father, "For I know him, that He will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he has spoken of him" (Genesis 18:19). Upon all of Abram's descendants will fall the promised blessing of God, and we see at last that it is this promise that explains Hagar's encounter in the wilderness--the first visitation by an angel mentioned in Scripture, and that, the Angel of the Lord, the preincarnate form of the Christ that will come from Abram's seed.

Ishmael is not that seed, but he is a son of Abram, whom God has blessed. And, if in Abram all the families of the earth will be blessed, it is as if the Angel of the Lord uses Hagar as the first proof. And exactly here we see the richest meaning of this text. After the Lord names Hagar's child, Hagar names the Lord, "You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees," and asks herself a question, "Have I also here seen Him who sees me?" (Genesis 16:13). With full awareness of the power of God's eye upon her--seeing even into her womb--Hagar sees her own life in the new light of truth. She names the spring Beer-Lahai-roi, "Well of the One Who Lives and Sees Me" (Genesis 16:14). What a richness of meaning is here uncovered when we realize that ayin, the Hebrew word for "fountain" or "spring" in Genesis 16:7, can also be translated as "eye, sight," and "appearance." Hagar has rightly fused together her name for the God who sees with the well by which He found her. How graciously has this God opened her eyes!

Two fled into the desert, but three return. Thus does Hagar carry her son and her God back to the daily grind. We can only imagine the look on Sarai's face when she sees the look on Hagar's face--a new look of dignity, purpose, and humility--but, most of all, a new light of hope in her eyes. Even so, we cannot imagine the daily miracles of grace this household will demand for each of them to carry on in civility and good will. Thirteen silent years will pass before Abram himself will hear from the Lord, but we may be sure that Hagar told him her entire story, for he named their son Ishmael, exactly as the Lord had said.

When Hagar's chapter in Abraham's life comes to a close, the Lord will have to open her eyes yet once again to behold a well of water she missed when despairing of Ishmael's life (Genesis 21:19). Like God's mercies, His promises spring up fresh every morning--even when our own souls go dry. And when we, like Hagar, find ourselves in dire need of another well in the wilderness, let us remember what we learned from the first well, and return to our place of humble submission to the God Who Sees it all.